The Guardian Official Android App Popular UK Newspaper

The Guardian is the official app of the popular UK newspaper of the same name. Customizable, easy to use and containing a useful favourites section, this news app has been a long time coming from a paper who have extensively embraced online news provision. The app lets you browse and favourite various sections and contributing writers, listen to podcasts, watch videos and download content for off-line reading. There are additional picture galleries included and the app is regularly updated. A long time coming, but at least worth the wait.

Features:

At last… At long long last! The Guardian, a popular British newspaper and website finally has released an official Android app. A what an app it is! In the interim there was the option of the unofficial Guardian Anywhere app. With plenty of features and user-friendly (or reader-friendly?) functionality, customizations, video, podcasts, galleries and favourites, not to mention the ability to download for offline reading, it’s really rather impressive.

Navigating the app couldn’t be easier. The home screen comes with default ‘Top Stories’, ‘Multimedia, ‘Sport’, ‘Culture’, ‘Comment is free’, ‘Most viewed’ and ‘Favourite’ sections but these can be edited to include any number of other sections that the main website contains; from Politics and Technology to Corrections and Obituaries. There are plenty of customizations available so users can configure the look and feel of the home screen depending on what they prefer.

Moving between pages is smooth and, while not perhaps as glossy and buttery as some of the multi-source news aggregators such as Pulse, it’s still nice to use and responsive. The menu option available on these list screens lets you jump to a wider list of sections, making navigation simpler still.

In addition to the rich and easy to access news stories, there are various other multimedia features. You can listen to a variety of podcasts, in addition to many of Guardian’s video reports, all within the app itself. The Guardian Online website often features some pretty impressive picture galleries, and these have also been added to the app also. These genuinely look superb and scrolling through the pictures is great. These kind of features give a real depth to the application and improves user experience.

There really is a wealth of content here. To wade through it, and find the things you are most interested in is aided by a helpful ‘Favourites’ section. Simply ‘star’ a particular section or writer and those will be saved into this section for easy access. This way everything you like is in one place, and you can keep up to date with the content you enjoy reading/viewing/listening to the most. Small and useful touches like this are truly intuitive for the end-user.

Sadly there are couple of things that lets the app down, especially in comparison to other news apps. There are no widgets available, so unlike the impressive Independent news app, you cannot have a handy widget on your home screen for immediate news perusal. Also, there seems to be no way to increase font size, which is surprising seeing as there are so many other ways to customize your experience.

On a positive note the app lets you download content for offline viewing- great if you travel a lot and cannot always depend on good network coverage. Downloading can also be configured to automatically occur at a set time. Therefore you could set the app to download news first thing in the morning so you have everything you need ready for your daily commute.

The Guardian – Top stories

The Guardian – Sections

The Guardian – Hot topics

The Guardian – Most viewed

The Guardian – In-story view

The Guardian – Stories by contributor

The Guardian – Add to favourites

The Guardian – Create a list of favourites

The Guardian – Lets you ‘favourite’ contributors

The Guardian – Edit how you see the home page

The Guardian – Podcast view

The Guardian – Gallery view (1)

The Guardian – Gallery view (2)

The Guardian – Set time to download content

The Guardian – Help

The Guardian – Settings

Usefulness:

For the Android-using Guardian reader this has been a long time coming, considering the popularity of the newspaper both in paper-form and its vast online content. The functionality of the app is great and the inclusion of various other forms of media; video, podcast and picture galleries is a healthy addition to the app itself. For big news readers this is incredibly useful for reading the news on the go.

Ease of Use:

As discussed before, navigation is very simple and intuitive, and you can move to different sections quickly and easily. While it lacks font size adjustment, which for some could be very important, the app is still easy to use and access to stories and multimedia is straight forward.

Frequently Used:

The app updates frequently, and The Guardian is a daily newspaper, so it’s the kind of news app you would use every day if you want to.

Interface:

The interface is very comfortable and looks smart. While not as lush perhaps as apps such as Pulse, which feature a very rich UI, The Guardian app looks really good and functions well.

AndroidTapp.com Rating

(4.4 out of 5)

Should you Download The Guardian? While The Guardian app is let down by lack of widgets (surely coming in a update?!), it is a rich and enjoyable way to read content from the main news website. The additional features which include the access to video, podcasts and galleries, as well as to being able to download content for offline reading make for an all-round superb news application. For people interested in The Guardian newspaper or website this is an essential download, so definitely give it a try.